2012 Jones Cup Replay Schedules

Relive the moment. Only the fourth time in the history of the tournament has the Philippines won this.

The Gilas 2.0 context

 
The latest developments regarding our national team have been on two fronts.

First, the pool for the SEABA that will compete on July 3-7 in Thailand has been named. No one from the said group will be from the collegiate ranks (since it is about to be the collegiate basketball season). The roster will be led by SMART-Gilas holdovers Chris Tiu and Marcus Douthit, and will be comprised of the core of the NLEx Road Warriors team that dominated the just-concluded PBA D-League (Cliff Hodge, Chris Ellis, Garvo Lanete, Emman Monfort, Woody Co, Borgie Hermida and Dave Marcelo). Completing the motley crew are D-League MVP Vic Manuel from Cebuana Lhullier and former Gilas 1 member and current Air Asia Patriot Aldrech Ramos. Coaching the team is SMART-Gilas assistant coach Jong Uichico. It is expected that we will obliterate the opposition and handily win the tournament. Current SMART-Gilas coach Chot Reyes has stated that this is not the cadet pool being referred to.

Update: Alaska players LA Tenorio, Sonny Thoss and former Gilas 1 member Mac Baracael are joining the lineup, replacing Hodge, Ellis and Manuel. The 12th person is supposed to be Sol Mercado, but that will be contingent on Meralco's performance in this conference.

Second, Alaska head coach Luigi Trillo opined about the context of SMART-Gilas being "selfish" in a series of tweets from his Twitter handle (@luigitrillo), to which Chot has countered on his twitter handle (@coachot). This is in regard to the decision of a couple of PBA prospects (Hodge & Ellis) deferring their entry into the draft and diving in to the Gilas campaign.

Regarding that, I'd like to express my thoughts on this. One, the decision whether Ellis and Hodge can apply for the upcoming PBA draft is theirs and theirs only. You cannot force them to join the draft. This ain't the military where you are mandated to join. You may try to influence them, but you can't force 'em. They make the call as to when they will enter. Plus, it kind of looks bad on Luigi that they have to beg for them to enter the draft to bolster a bad team in Alaska. It also shows a lack of confidence in your players. Sorry about your damn luck if you were hoping for them to come in. It kinda just sucks that the team is in its worst stretch in ages.

Update: Looks like with Hodge and Ellis being dropped in the SEABA lineup, they are said to be advised to join the upcoming PBA draft. 

Two, if there is someone you should be calling "selfish," it will be those teams under the SMC banner, who basically barred certain players Chot was targeting (the likes of Marcio, Alex, James, Marc and Arwind). I am still kind of bewildered by the explanation (or lack thereof) as to why they ain't there. Of course, there will be an official explanation regarding their inaccessibility.

Hopefully, there is clarity and assurance with this because this is about national pride we are talking about here.

Deconstructing Coach Chot's PBA selections

SMART-Gilas 2 head coach Chot Reyes announced his 16-man PBA Pool for the Gilas 2 earlier this week. These are the following individuals:

From Talk N' Text: Jimmy Alapag, Jayson Castro, Ryan Reyes, Larry Fonacier, Ranidel De Ocampo and Kelly Williams
From Alaska: LA Tenorio and Sonny Thoss,
From Petron: Alex Cabagnot and Arwind Santos
From B-Meg: James Yap and Marc Pingris
From Powerade: Gary David and Marcio Lassiter
From Rain or Shine: Gabe Norwood
From Barangay Ginebra: Enrico Villanueva

He has yet to announce the other half of the pool consisting of the players who are not yet in the PBA, led by Chris Tiu from the Gilas roster. Current Air 21 import and naturalized Filipino Marcus Douthit is also in, even with the planned naturalization of Denver Nugget and recent Manila visitor JaVale McGee already in the works.

I am not surprised with the six players from TNT, because those guys are the ones he's most familiar with, being their coach. Plus, they won the 3 of the last four conferences, and you cannot argue with that success. I am relatively surprised with JVee's non-inclusion, as well as Enrico's inclusion. Then again, a naturalized player will man the slot for at least 30 minutes, so that will be the least of our concerns.

What can we expect: a lot of small ball, transition, open court offense, something that has been en vogue as of late (look at Team USA under Coach K). We have designated gunners with Yap and David alternating in the role. There is an emphasis as well with defense, led by Marcio, who did such a great job for SMART-Gilas last time out, and Larry for TNT. You'll need someone who knows Chot's offense, so the entire TNT PG corps will do that for him. Sonny is an upgrade over Asi for the back-up big who can play alongside naturalized slot man. Think our backcourt's small? Ryan and Gabe can handle it. Even Larry can do it in a pinch. Marc is like Udonis Haslem. Arwind is like Josh Smith, even with his bad habit of shooting threes poorly.

It is important to stress this info out: Chot did express that the pool will remain fluid, so guys can play their way in or out of the pool.